Animated GIFs are Slower in IE than FireFox?

[trowand]

I'm working on a website that I'm building with Yahoo Site Builder 2.2 and I recently made an animated GIF for my "title" at the top of my home page. I wanted to check out how it looked after some changes in both Internet Explorer and Firefox and I noticed that the animation is much slower when viewed in IE versus Firefox. The animation is faster and smoother in FireFox. What the heck? Any suggestions?

[mairving]

Main suggestion is to not use animated gif's. They are generally up near the top of most annoying things on a site.

IMO, things that make people want to leave your site no matter how cute are bad.

[doctorgonzo]

Just say NO to animated GIFs!

Seriously. Along with scrolling and flashing text, animated GIFs are at the top of the list when it comes to web site annoyances that only serve to point out amateur design.

[rspassey]

You really dont like GIFs?
I don't believe it, I love GIFs that are related to the website, like animated atoms on chemistry websites and what not.

[trowand]

Here, check it out. I don't think you'll find it annoying at all. It's not a cartoon, it's moving text...

http://www.sushi-stuff.com

[mairving]

Originally Posted by ryan124712 You really dont like GIFs? I don't believe it, I love GIFs that are related to the website, like animated atoms on chemistry websites and what not.

Things that almost always make the list of web design mistakes are:
-audio on a site that plays automatically and can't be turned off.
-animated gif's
-javascript scrollers (scrolling text)
-poor use of flash
-popups
-light text on light backgrounds, dark text on dark backgrounds.
-under construction signs
-poor placement and formatting of text and pictures
-dead links
-mystery meat navigation

A few other ones are use of pdf's for online reading rather than downloading, site designed for >insert browser< and plenty of others.

[doctorgonzo]

Originally Posted by trowand Here, check it out. I don't think you'll find it annoying at all. It's not a cartoon, it's moving text...

Nope, still annoying. Poeple aren't drawn to the website for the title, and yet when the title suddently flips unexpectedly you are distracted and your eye moves up to the title. Not terribly good design.

[mairving]

Originally Posted by trowand Here, check it out. I don't think you'll find it annoying at all. It's not a cartoon, it's moving text... http://www.sushi-stuff.com

It is okay but I think unnecessary. It really reminds me of an old neon sign. Still I would focus more on the logo since right now it is pretty forgettable. I mean you are selling sushi stuff and you have a text logo. I would focus more on conveying what you are about with your logo than with an animated gif. When I look at the site and see the logo and it's animation it screams unprofessional. If you are viewed as unprofessional, then you are already in trouble. Not meaning to be harsh about it...just truthful.

[trowand]

Hey man, I'm totally new to websites and design. I agree that it looks very amateurish. I'm all ears. I'm not crazy about the Yahoo Sitebuilder as it's pretty limited but it IS easy. I wonder if I should invest in Dreamweaver. I know it's kind of expensive. Dreamweaver has WYSIWYG capabilities, right?

[mairving]

Originally Posted by trowand Hey man, I'm totally new to websites and design. I agree that it looks very amateurish. I'm all ears. I'm not crazy about the Yahoo Sitebuilder as it's pretty limited but it IS easy. I wonder if I should invest in Dreamweaver. I know it's kind of expensive. Dreamweaver has WYSIWYG capabilities, right?

It's really just like everything else. You gotta start somewhere. Dreamweaver is the best WYSIWYG editor and would help. The two things that it won't give you are design although it makes that easier and experience. To me the main things are site design are quite simple. Come up with a logo first, design your site around the colors in the logo, add some easy navigation, add some content and you are good to go. You might even ask around here if there is someone that might help design you a logo for a minimal price and go from there. You could even have someone design you a page and then use that design to make your site.

The following rules should apply:
-if you are going to build your site for yourself, it doesn't matter much what it looks like and you are going to tweak it a good bit.
i-f you are going to build a site to sell merchandise or offer services, get someone to do the design for you.
-if you plan on doing more sites, then go back to the drawing board, learn HTML, some javascript, a server-side scripting language, buy or find an editor to use and go from there.

[blue60007]

I would drop the animated title and go for something static. Animated titles are annoying and most important, distracting, people will be drawn to the animation - not the content of the site, and the content is what you want people to be drawn to.

The list of things mairving listed a couple posts above is an excellent list of what NOT to do

I would also rid of the colorful background, that's also distracting. And some smaller font for your "about us" text. That's another thing that makes your site look bad is writing whole paragraphs in large font. Save the larger font for titles (for different sections of the site), and still don't make the font the biggest there is, like a medium size at the biggest.

[kram 2.0]

One thing that I want to reiterate on that mairving nailed was experience. It is very hard to design websites with a good sense of space and color with minimal experience. I've been through it (in the form of FrontPage templates) - it just takes time. If you need the website to look good, I would recommend having a website designer do it for you.

kram

[TwoRails]

Well... there is another problem. Sushi is not raw fish. Sushi is a method of cooking rice, and rice cooked in a certain method. It is often presented with raw fish, but can be served with other items like celery and so on.

[blue60007]

I'm more than willing to give you a few pointers, I have some webdesign experience...Though you might be better off with someone full time and with more experience than I.